Nuclear weapons implode. They do tremendous damage.
I prefer to believe that antimatter would do lots more damage (or the writers would claim there was a lot less of it in the weapons) if the writers understood the physics in even the most rudimentary manner. As it is, the writers understand physics about as well as I understand...?
Hmmm...
Now I think of it, I'd be ashamed to admit I understand anything that poorly.
------------------ It is less important that you agree with me than it is for you to to understand what I'm saying.
Starbuck "Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"
Member # 153
posted
It seems like my graps of physics is rather shaky
The physicist friend who told me about antimatter interactions before I decided to start this post said that antimatter particles only annihilate their opposites. I assume this means that anitdeuterium will only annihiliate antideuterium, and so on? If this is true, why does a warp core breach occur? If this is false, where am I going wrong?
------------------ WARNING: Storing semtex in the microwave may be hazardous to your health!
posted
Your friend is right but maybe he didn't explain it to you too well. If an anti-deuteron (consisting of one anti-proton, one anti-neutron and one positron) were to run into an atom of say lithium (three protons, four neutrons three electrons), the positron would annihilate with one of the electrons, and the anti-proton and anti-neutron would annihilate with one of the protons and neutrons (or more accurately, the constituant quarks and anti-quarks react). The result is a release of energy and left-over free particles.
It doesn't have to be the exact element for matter/anti-matter reactions to take place.
posted
Masao: Good point about the look of explosions in space. Unfortunately all sci-fi shows, regardless if they are realistic or crap, do have the "oil barrel" explosions. Where was such an explosion shown first? Already in TOS? Or as late as in Star Wars?
The other point of starships behaving like fighter aircraft is equally unrealistic. However, I could imagine that a starship could easily rotate while flying, which could bring it into a better position to fire. This could be accomplished by simply activating the thrusters unsymmetrically. I think it was also Star Wars where the "fighter-like" combats were first seen.
------------------ "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." A somewhat different Janeway in VOY: "Living Witness" Ex Astris Scientia
However, what astonished me most at the time was the "two-dimensional" way of fighting in SoA. Enter Sisko and the Defiant. They try to break through the Dominion lines by blasting right into the center of the Armada. Then you see some shots where loads of Galor Class ships/Jem'Hadar Attack cruisers seem to stand in line - motionless - one behind the other - with noting but empty space above and beneath.
Don't get me wrong. There might be other ships in the vicinity, it just doesn't look like it. So why on Earth didn't the Fed fleet just fly "around" the Dominion Armada - or, to get a little crazy, warp through them? Wasn't there the theory that this was possible?
Any thoughts?
------------------ oh behave!!
[This message has been edited by Austin Powers (edited November 19, 1999).]
posted
I don't know how well it would work to warp through the line of battle--any baddies you'd have to fight would have FTL sensors. A lot of battles do seem to ignore two basics facts, though: -Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. -It has three (3) dimensions.
I remember an ep of VOY where we had maybe six or eight ships form a circle around Voyager. Do they set a course of 000/(-)15 and fly above (below) the baddies? Nope--someone just comments that they're surrounded. Cmdr Chuckles, I believe it was.
posted
I believe you're thinking "Think Tank", Lt Tom
Anyway, there's nothing to say that enemy ships can't adjust their position to stop another vessel (like the Defiant) from going around them. Also, Starfleet was out-numbered 2 to 1 in "SoA". That would make going around rather difficult.
I'm sure there's some good reasons why warping directly through an enemy fleet is a bad idea. The fact that you'd end up colliding head on (at warp speed) might be one of them.
------------------ "Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets) Dax's Ships of STAR TREK
[This message has been edited by Dax (edited November 21, 1999).]
posted
The look of modern special effects is all the fault of George Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic. In Star Wars, all explosions were created by a fellow named Joe Viskocil, who pioneered the technique of filming big billowing explosions from below rather than from the side. After the success of Star Wars, this look soon became universal (Battlestar Galactic, Star Trek, Buck Rogers). I don't remember too many explosions in TOS. However, when Nomad blew up in "The Changling," the explosion was (IIRC) a rapid burst of light or shower of sparks without flames or smoke.
As far as the motion of ships resembling that of airplanes, Lucas cut together a reel of outtakes from WWII war movies and gun-camera footage to show the SPFX crew the look he wanted. Wouldn't you like to see a ship flip around 180 degrees and fire on a pursuer while travelling ass-first?
Two-dimensional envelopment dates back to TOS. For example in "The Enterprise Incident," Enterprise gets surrounded by three Romulan Cruisers (which seem rather too close). Ironically, in Star Trek II, Spock criticizes Khan's thinking as being "two dimensional."
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
Maybe I am not getting the concept but... You guys make surrounded sound like the ships are going to reach out and grab eachother. Why can't s ship be "surrounded" by two ships? I have always taken the word to mean covered by every possible firing arc.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Actually, the idea to warp through an obstacle wasn't created by my crazy imagination. It came from our dear Dr. McCoy. Remember the scene in ST.III when Kirk tried to steal the Enterprise. Spacedoors were closed. Bones: "Are you just going to warp through them?"
Either Bones tried his sarcasm on the captain again (didn't quite look like it) or it is really possible.
Anyway, bickering aside, don't we all love big dogfight battle sequences in space, however unrealistic some aspects of them might seem under close scrutiny?
Think back to TNG when all you got to see was Picard or Riker talking about what was going on - instead of actually seeing it. "Special effects" to me then meant having more than two ships on screen at a time.
posted
Actually, I like the explosion effects from "Silent Running". The movie itself was a preachy eco-sermon, and starred my favorite psycho, Bruce Dern, but the effects were quite excellent especially when you consider when it was made.
--Baloo
------------------ It is less important that you agree with me than it is for you to to understand what I'm saying.
posted
Obi Juan: You're right. As far as being unable to move, a ship could be "covered" by even a single ship targeting it, for example, from behind or from below or from any angle from which it could not return effective fire. After all, to "get the drop" on someone you don't need to surround him with armed men. It's just that in Star Trek to indicate the concept of a ship being captured, they surround it in two dimensions, like, for example, a white Ford Bronco surrounded by police cars, which seems somehow incomplete (but still unnecessary) in three-dimensional space. After all, if police cars carried 30 mm cannons and the cops weren't afraid to use them, I doubt you'd need to physically surround a fleeing vehicle to stop it.
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
If your ship is surrounded on a plane, and you want to escape by warping away perpendicular to that plane, you have to first use the thrusters to rotate the ship into the direction you want to move. In this time, the baddies blast you into oblivion. That's why a ship can be surrounded in only two dimensions.
------------------ "General Hammond: Request permission to beat the crap out of this man." -Colonel O'Neill, Stargate: SG-1: "Bane"
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